Earthquake hits home for Meek

Rep. Kendrick Meek (D-Fla.) will not be returning to Washington for the foreseeable future and he’s not talking about his bid for Senate — not until he’s made a serious dent in the grief his heavily Haitian-American district is feeling.

Meek’s district, which includes Miami and Little Haiti, has perhaps the closest connection to Haiti of any congressional district. About one-third of the nation’s Haitian population live in Florida. The largest concentration of those is among Meek’s constituents, many of whom have lost loved ones.

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“He is literally taking individual meetings and phone calls from crying mothers in the district whose children are dead in Haiti. It's heartbreaking,” said his spokesman Adam Sharon.

Despite the volatile political atmosphere, Meek is among a group of lawmakers who are trying to set politics aside over the next few days, including New York Democrats Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Rep. Yvette Clarke, to help their Haitian-American populations. New York has the second-largest concentration of Haitians in the country.

Four of Clarke’s staffers are of Haitian decent.

Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Texas) told POLITICO that she has been in around-the-clock contact with five constituents who were in Haiti at the time of the earthquake while on a humanitarian mission. Her Houston district is home to thousands of Haitian-Americans, and she is working to bring home those constituents who are trapped in the devastated country.

President Barack Obama, in his recent address to the House Democratic Caucus Retreat, urged lawmakers to follow suit.

“I just want everybody in the House of Representatives to understand this is a moment for American leadership,” Obama said.

Even though he’s running for Senate, Meek has canceled several campaign-related events this week. Rarely seen on national television, he has flooded the cable network shows to talk about the relief efforts he’s coordinating. He has urged the president to temporarily stop deporting Haitians.

Nearly 300 people turned out for Meek’s emergency town hall meeting Thursday, which was organized in only four hours. Many came hoping to volunteer services to the torn country, including a group of doctors who were frustrated they couldn’t get there.

“If anyone in the country or the face of earth knows more how to respond, they’re in this room right now,” Meek said during the meeting Thursday. “After CNN leaves, after MSNBC and the 'Today' show and all of the other news networks leave, we're back to Haiti.”

Jackson-Lee says she is still working to secure a flight home for her five stranded constituents, while also attempting to send two planes full of physicians, medical supplies and eventually mortuary teams.

“Obviously it’s a challenge to fly in right now. And the pictures are heart-wrenching — to see corpses covered and the wounded who are lying around, not because there’s not the heart to take care of them, but because they absolutely have no place to go,” she said.

After traveling back to her New York district this week, Gillibrand has joined forces with the Rev. Al Sharpton, who is organizing a trip to Haiti.

In a letter written the day after the earthquake struck, she implored Obama to grant temporary protected status to Haitian refugees who have already fled to America, something she had previously asked the president for this summer.

“...There is no way to safely return Haitian citizens to their country,” she wrote. “The United States granted temporary protective status to Honduras and Nicaragua in 1999, following Hurricane Mitch, and to El Salvador in 2001, following several earthquakes.”

When the Gillibrand returns to Washington, she and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) plan to introduce legislation that would waive tax limits on tax deductible donations going to Haiti.

Under current law, a taxpayer can only take a deduction for donating up to half of their income. But the government has waived this limit before, including after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast.

“Haiti needs our help now more than ever before, and we need to make sure U.S. citizens have every opportunity to provide the Haitian people the humanitarian aid they need,” said Schumer in a statement.